UK prototype fusion reactor reaches 15 million degrees

Tokamak Energy, the Oxfordshire-based private fusion energy venture, has announced that its ‘ST40’ spherical tokamak reactor has achieved plasma temperatures of over 15 million degrees Celsius, hotter than the centre of the Sun.

Jonathan Carling, CEO at Tokamak Energy said: “Reaching 15 million degrees is yet another indicator of the progress at Tokamak Energy and a further validation of our approach. Our aim is to make fusion energy a commercial reality by 2030.”

The next target for the team is to achieve 100 million degrees Celsius, the temperature necessary to force together charged deuterium and tritium particles – which naturally repel each other – to create controlled fusion.

Tokamak Energy grew out of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire. The company combines spherical tokamaks with the latest generation of high temperature superconducting magnets (HTS) in a technique called ‘Merging Compression’ to create a more compact, cheaper approach than the much larger, traditional ring-shaped chambers.

Dr David Kingham, co-founder of Tokamak Energy, added: “Fusion is a major challenge, but one that must be tackled. We believe that with collaboration, dedication and investment, fusion will be an important part of achieving deep decarbonisation of the global energy supply in the 2030s and beyond.”